Take a look at the guys in the above picture. Now, imagine them replaced by the prominent names mentioned by Ramis. Quite a difference, eh?
By “we” in the above quote, Ramis had in mind himself,
his co-writer Chris Miller, and co-producers Ivan Reitman and Matty Simmons.
John Landis, brought in to direct, had his own ideas—and sounds like he rubbed
the original creative team the wrong way by calling the project “my movie.”
In general, Landis desired to cast straight dramatic
actors—quite a contrast from those mentioned above. But some of his other
choices were, shall we say, unusual. He sounded out Jack Webb to play
Dean Wormer and Meat Loaf for Bluto, in case Belushi wouldn’t or couldn’t take
on the role.
But, for my money, his most unusual idea was Kim Novak as Mrs. Wormer. She had, by this time, fled Hollywood without
completely abandoning her film career.
But the hard-drinking, libidinous dean’s wife would
have been quite a change from the far more restrained roles that the blond
Fifties goddess played in films like Bell, Book and Candle, Pal Joey and Picnic.
What might have happened if she decided to go through
with it? Might other roles have come her way? Would she have played the wild
cucumber scene with the same uninhibited delight that Verna Bloom did, or would
she have tantalized Otter by staying just out of reach, aisle after aisle in the supermarket, as she did with Jimmy
Stewart early in Vertigo?
We’ll never know. But it’s as startling an alternative
casting idea as the original choice for Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate: Novak's fellow
blond Fifties star Doris Day.
